A tool: Behavioral Momentum
You are asking your child to do something hard in his/her mind - both your child and you are frustrated🥵! Behavioral Momentum is a tool that can help your child warm up to the idea of the harder task by starting with something easier!
How to use Behavioral Momentum?
Think of the positive interactions as a warm-up, easing your learner into accepting the more challenging request. Once he/she gets used to responding positively to a request, they will likely continue responding positively!
✅ Step 1: Identify highly preferred tasks and least preferred tasks
✅ Step 2: Ask your learner to perform an easy task
✅ Step 3: Ask him to perform a different easy task
✅ Step 4: Repeat asking your learner to do easy tasks until you feel he/she is likely to comply with your harder request.
✅ Step 5: Limit the harder task frequency (the number) or the duration (time) to the least possible requirement
What does it look like...
You NEED to get to the checkout line at the grocery store, but your child has flopped on the floor, try QUICKLY doing the following:
✅ "Clap your hands!" [easy] ➡️ Claps hands ➡️ "Good clapping!"
✅ "Touch your nose!" [easy] ➡️ Touches nose ➡️ "Good touching nose!"
✅ "Touch your head!" [easy] ➡️ Touches head ➡️ "Good touching head!"
✅ "Stand up!"[HARD] ➡️ Stands up ➡️ "Good standing up"
✅ Keep going - quickly with an excited voice and body language!
When to use this tool...
Behavioral momentum is a great intervention for:
Easing transitions
Unexpected requests
Behaviors that your learner routinely tries to “escape.”
If your learner is engaged in an activity such as playing with trains, and you interrupt with a demand, “Time to put your shoes on and go outside,” you will likely be met with resistance.
First, you present another activity like coloring that you know he would be interested in and then to another preferred task, and gradually transitioning outside would increase the chances for compliance.
Because it eases the transition from what they were doing to what you want them to do, behavioral momentum has been found to not only increase compliance but also shorten the time it takes for a learner to comply, making it a great intervention to be used in schools where time spent on academics is critical to success (Banda, D. R., & Kubina Jr., R. M., 2006).
Behavioral Momentum: Let's get moving!
Behavioral momentum is a skill that needs to be practiced and will look different depending on the child and the activity, and sometimes even the day! What is important to know is that you are not letting the child out of the task; you are simply lowering the level of demand or complexity to make the task more manageable.
By Tessy Thomas
